


The Fires of Hell

by Sidonie



Category: The Pillars of the Earth (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Dubious Consent, Explicit Language, F/M, Parent/Child Incest, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:37:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sidonie/pseuds/Sidonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>William Hamleigh's life is defined by his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fires of Hell

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This fic is brutal and disturbing. It's meant to be horribly squicky, and contains all sorts of violence/rape/incest triggers. I'm not quite sure where this came from, but William fascinates me, so here it is.

“Whom do you hate the most?”

That was easy. “John Marshal.” The dashing young knight, newly arrived at court, had called him a coward and a liar in front of everyone, and him a minor lord, no more noble or entitled than the Hamleighs.

“And what would you do to him?”

He considered for a moment. “I would cut out his tongue and roast it on a spit.” _A tongue is fitting_ , he thought. _For his slander_. He tensed, knowing what came next.

“And whom do you love the most?”

 _Not you, mother_ , William's thoughts whispered. _Never you_. He gritted his teeth and looked away, her scent lying heavy on his tongue, cloying sweetness and filth like rotting apples.

“You,” he murmured.

She gave a small, shuddering gasp, like she always did, like she was _surprised_ by his obedience in their little game. “And what would you do to me?” she hissed, sibilant and panting, sprawling wanton across his lap.

William turned back toward her, meeting her dark-eyed stare. He wanted to scream, but instead he leaned forward and captured her lips, ignoring the bile rising in his throat. She tasted of sin, and he felt the flames of hell licking around the edges of his skin.

\-----

Sweat slid down William's face and neck, dripping from his damp hair and splashing in the dust at his feet. He roared and dashed forward, swinging his sword in a wild overhand blow that carried all his strength. The steel clashed against Walter's, nearly slamming the bigger man to his knees, but after wavering for a moment he threw William back, grinning ferociously.

“You've improved, my lord,” he growled, sweeping his blade in a lightning-fast cut at his master's side. William blocked, retreated, and blocked again, his muscles burning. Walter handled his massive two-handed sword as though it was made of air. Blows rained down on William, nearly too quick to see, and he let instinct take over, the doomsday bells of steel on steel tolling in his ears.

They finished their bout in a draw, lowering their weapons together with the silent understanding that stemmed from years spent sparring against each other. Walter clapped an approving hand on William's shoulder. He was the only man allowed to be so easy with his master; even Lord Percy wouldn't have walked away from such condescension without bruises.

“You'll make a fine fighter,” he commented, his breathing heavy with exertion.

“I _am_ a fine fighter.” William's tone edged on venomous.

Walter threw back his head and laughed, the ugly scar that split his right eyebrow and cheek crinkling into the deep lines around his eyes. “In the practice yard, perhaps. You have a gift for destruction, my lord, that much is clear.” He turned to face the young man, his gaze shifting into something cold and hard. “Our work here is no more than exercise. Skill counts for a good deal, but on the battlefield, the winner is the one who wants to taste his enemy's blood. War—” His grin was cruel beyond measure, touched at the edges with dark glee. “War is as good as sex if you can find it in you to enjoy it. There's nothing like running a man through, knowing that whether he's a great lord or mud-grubbing commoner, he'll die the same in the end. You'll never know if you have it until you fight a battle, though. It's a trial by fire if ever there was one.”

A cold frisson went up William's spine as he met Walter's eyes. “I won't burn,” he promised.

\-----

“Whom do you hate the most?”

“Owain Branson.” His answer tripped easily from his lips, ready ever since he'd seen the hungry gleam in her stare at breakfast that morning. One of their men-at-arms, better with a sword than his common, base-born origins should have allowed. He had defeated William in front of two visiting knights, and then he had _laughed_.

She let out a feathery sigh. “And what would you do to him?”

“Chop him to bits with his own sword and feed him to the dogs.”

“Mmm, and whom do you love the most?”

It didn't get easier with time. William felt her small, too-cold hand slide under the edge of his tunic and tried not to cringe. _I don't know_ , he wanted to say. _I don't think I love anybody_.

“You.” The word dragged out of him and his stomach roiled at the ecstasy on his mother's face as her eyes fluttered close and her hand dipped toward the lacings on his breeches.

“And what would you do to me?”

He shuddered as her searching fingers brushed over his cock. Pulling her close, he rucked up her skirts and ground his hips against hers, burying his face in the crook between her neck and her shoulder so he wouldn't have to see her face go slack with lust. Her hands were cold but her thighs were hot, impossibly hot in the chill autumn air.

\-----

William rode through the gates of Shiring Castle on Walter's horse, his man-at-arms jogging a few steps behind. His father met him in the yard, all wild grey hair and frowns.

“Where have you been?” he grumbled. “Your mother is nearly frantic with worry.”

Leather creaked as William swung out of the saddle. “I need a new horse,” he remarked.

Lord Percy blinked at him, slow as ever. “What's wrong with your old one? And what's that to do with anything?”

“My old one is lying dead in out forest,” William retorted, rolling his eyes at his imbecile of a father. “He broke his leg in a foxhole and I had to kill him. That would also be why I'm late in returning.”

“William, you cannot continue with this recklessness!” Percy exclaimed. “We don't have the money to buy you another horse of his caliber.”

Casting a glance back at Walter, who was watching the exchange with the half-amused, half-deadly expression he often wore, William sighed heavily. “I'll just ask mother, shall I?”

His father's eyes widened. “That wouldn't be wise. She's in a foul mood at the moment, I'm afraid, and bothering her would be—”

“Do shut up,” William interjected, shoving his way past. Before he could go more than a few steps, however, Percy grabbed his arm.

“You know how she gets when she's angry,” he warned. “She's like a wildfire. Best to stand back and let her burn.”

\-----

Late evening light filtered in through the window, casting everything in gold. The warm tones made the room feel cozy and almost romantic, despite its bare stone walls and sparse furniture.

“Whom do you hate the most?” The Lady Regan's tone was almost off-hand, but the quick, darting motion of her eyes betrayed her.

William braced his hands over the hearth, staring wide-eyed at the smoldering coals. “Aliena,” he hissed. It was a common answer these days; the bitch had spurned him, forcing him to take what little pleasure he could by force, and now he heard rumors of her prosperity. They sickened him.

He could feel his mother's heavy-lidded gaze on his back. “And what would you do to her?”

“First I'd take her, over and over again until she couldn't even scream. Then I'd pay every man in our barracks to have their way with her. Then I'd fuck her again and slit her throat.”

She seemed to like that; she nearly purred as she came up behind him and wrapped her arms about his waist. “And whom do you love the most?”

His answer was prepared, of course, but still he thought of other things. _I think I love Mary_ , his mind offered. _She's beautiful for a peasant, and she sometimes smiles at me. All the other whores take my money and spit in the dirt as I pass, but I think she likes it when I hurt her, and no girl's ever reacted like that before, not even you, mother dearest_.

“You.”

“Oh yes, and what would you do to me?”

“I'd throw you down and fuck you, feel you hot and wet around me, have you screaming my name.” His voice was flat and toneless to his ears, but judging from the way his mother's grip tightened, she hadn't noticed. The orange-red coals wavered in his sight and he shut his eyes against the heat.

\-----

A roar of exhilaration ripped from William's throat as he spurred his charger forward. His sword whistled through the air, tracing a glittering arc down until it split open the face of a footsoldier whose chainmail cowl did nothing to protect him. The impact jarred William's arm, but the feel of a blade in flesh was sweeter and softer than when it met unyielding steel, and a fierce grin stretched across his face as he rode on, searching for another target. Time and again he felt the crunch of bone and the thick, sticky thud of cutting meat. He opened the throat of a lord's fine stallion, ran through a page in boiled leather, and traded a brief flurry of blows with an ambitious young knight before knocking him out of his saddle and onto the ground, where he was trampled by his equally green mount. Everywhere he could see the blue banners of Maud's men, and he slaughtered them one by one, blood soaking their surcoats Stephen-red.

He was _good_ at this, brilliant even, and the thrill of it shook him to his core. His heart slammed against his ribs as he screamed wordless challenges, eyes wide open and the taste of blood copper and bright and sharp on his tongue. Lightning crackled through his veins and pulsed beneath his skin, a swordstroke away from spilling out to salt the earth. His senses were almost painfully sharp, the sights and sounds and smells of the battlefield etching themselves into his soul.

This moment, this glory and destruction and horror, belonged to him. The energy buzzing through him washed away the ache of worn, bruised muscles, the fatigue that could set his head to swimming, and even the excruciating pain where the point of a spear had ripped open his chainmail and scored a long cut up his thigh. He was a new-made man, someone to be feared and respected. This was his domain, where he had complete control, and it was intoxicating.

“My lord!” Walter reined up beside him, pulling off his helmet to reveal blond-brown curls soaked in blood and sweat. “We've won—Maud's men are in full retreat.”

William gave him a broad smile. “Perfect. Are we pursuing?”

“A force has been sent after Maud herself, but she may be well away.”

Glancing in the direction Walter indicated, William caught a glimpse of light dancing on the darkening horizon. “What is that?” he demanded.

His companion shrugged noncommittally. “Word is she left John Marshal and another man to stop the pursuit where the valley narrows. They likely holed up in the church—it's as good a defense as they'll get.”

William laughed loudly, throwing his head back and exulting as the world began to grey into dusk. “I once wished his tongue torn out and roasted,” he chuckled. “Looks like I might get my wish after all!”

Walter's deep, rumbling laugh joined his as they turned and headed back toward the village that lay less than a mile away. Behind them, the brightness on the horizon flickered and grew as the house of God was reduced to blazing tinder.

\-----

“Whom do you hate the most?”

“John Marshal.” An old response, dredged up from the simmering depths of William's mind only recently. Left to cover Maud's retreat, the man slaughtered several knights who had very nearly been William's friends, murdered his own companion when the poor sod suggested they surrender, and personally set the church that was his defense ablaze. The fire effectively stopped the pursuit, killing several more men, and Marshal, badly burned, had simply left out a back door and _walked_ the twenty-five miles back to Maud. Within a few weeks, the story was on every man's lips. Even Stephen's knights whispered of his heroism. It made William want to retch.

“And what would you do to him?”

That took some thought. “Have his cock chopped off in front of the royal court and stuffed down his throat until he choked to death.”

“And whom do you love the most?”

 _Maybe I love Walter_ , he thought. _At least Walter lets me fuck him without these twisted games, without pretense. At least he teaches me to fight back so I don't have to be helpless anymore. But you, mother, you take pleasure in my helplessness, and I will never love that_.

“You.”

“And what would you do to me?”

She knew the answer, yet still she asked. William could no longer say the words, and so he simply fucked her, the mother whose body was as familiar to him as his own. He never met her eyes any more, and when he sheathed himself in her warm cunt he was thinking of the man who had stood in the middle of a burning church, wreathed himself in flame, and walked out of the blaze unscathed.

\-----

William's new wife was a delicate thing, petite and blonde and a sweet thirteen. She looked at up at him with huge eyes, full of apprehension, uncertainty, and a touch of hope. He met her gaze and reached out to stroke her cheek, smooth and unmarked. She was nearly too pretty too touch.

Nearly.

Throwing her onto the bed, he slammed his hands down on her shoulders, pinning her to the sheets. She screamed, high and shrill, squirming helplessly against his grip. In retaliation for her noise he tore at her skirts, the rich fabric giving way beneath his eager fingers, ragged edges exposing creamy white flesh.

He enjoyed this. More than enjoyed—he _loved_ it with a bright-hot passion. Shutting Aliena up had been a mistake, he now saw; the shrieks echoing off the walls rang in his ears, torn out of his lady wife's throat by his bruising hold, the blows that split her lip and eyebrow, his cock shoving hungrily into her, staining the sheets with her virginal blood. It was a give and take, her pain and his domination, another sort of battle, just as dizzying and overwhelming and fiercely beautiful as war.

He was master here.

\-----

“Whom do you hate the most?”

“And what would you do to them?”

“Whom do you love the most?”

“And what would you do to me?”

The same four questions, the refrain of William's life. The answers never changed either, not substantially, because they could not. Conceiving of anything else was treason, rejection, and he was not allowed.

There was so much he couldn't do. His mother's imperious voice echoed in his ears through every moment but those few sweet hours in battle or in bed with another woman, where the screaming drowned her out. But having tasted that freedom, something broke in him. Backed up against the wall, tasting her sour-sweet apple-scented breath, he had never felt so trapped.

Now she thrashed in his arms, the rag doll clamped over her nose and mouth so like and unlike the straw knights he had played with as a child, and he had never felt so free. His heart was racing, his blood beating in his ears, but her struggles against him were futile, something new and old, strange and familiar. He held her close, comforting her as she had so often comforted him when he was younger and sick or tired or hurt.

William stroked his mother's hair, murmuring reassurances to her as she died in his arms.

“Don't worry,” he whispered. “You're going to heaven.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Yes, the John Marshal story is real. Or at least he told it to his son, William Marshal, who went on to be powerful and famous enough to have epic poems written about him, which is why we have existing records of it. I probably placed it incorrectly in the timeline of the Anarchy, for which I apologize.
> 
> 2\. I encourage people to write fic in this fandom! It's a huge world to play around in, and there can be fluff too! Probably.
> 
> 3\. Thanks for reading!


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